Pop the Clutch

by Eric J. Guignard

  It was hard, knowing I was a better player and a better singer and not looking to hop into the sack with jailbait, like Dwayne, but that’s how it was. His band, and the truth of it was, we were afraid of him.

  Besides, nobody was twistin’ my arm keepin’ me here, were they?

  I put my empty on the bar and started for the stage.

  “Where you going, dickhead? Break ain’t over.”

  “That amp is fuzzing pretty bad. I’m gonna wiggle a couple tubes, see if I can fix it. And that puddle is getting close to the mic stand. I need to move you a couple feet to the side.”

  “So I’m standing behind fucking Jim Bob? I don’t think so. Leave it, it won’t hurt nothing.”

  I shrugged. “You’re the boss.”

  “Fuckin’ right about that. Hey, darlin’, why don’t you get me another beer? Can’t sing dry.” He patted the waitress on her ass.

  She gave him a tired smile and walked toward the end of the bar.

  ***

  I PULLED THE WALL PLUG, reached into the amp’s back, wiggled a couple of the tubes out, blew on the connector pins, put them back. Plugged the amp in again, and as I started to step off the stage, bumped into the mic stand and knocked it over.

  Made some noise.

  Dwayne yelled, “Way to go, retard! That stuff costs money, be careful!” He laughed, and the crowd laughed with him.

  I set the mic stand back up.

  ***

  DURING THE SOLO in Ricky Nelson’s “A Teenager’s Romance,” Dwayne’s treble E-string snapped. He glared at me, nodded at Roy, who took the lead on sax.

  Any guitarist worth a shit could finish the solo with five strings, but Dwayne only knew how to do it one way, and adjusting on the fly wasn’t in his bag. So he let the Telecaster hang on its strap, and when Roy finished the solo, Dwayne leaned back toward the microphone to start the next verse. He grabbed the mic stand with both hands, like he always did when he wasn’t playing the guitar.

  That’s when he started shaking more than Jerry Lee Lewis on speed, vibrating so hard the sweat flew off him.

  The crowd thought it was part of the act, and it seemed to go on for a long time, but it was only about five or six seconds. He couldn’t let go, and then he collapsed, taking the stand down with him.

  I ran out, pulled the amp’s plug, and dropped to my knees to examine Dwayne.

  He was deader than black plastic, and even if he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have made it to the nearest hospital, because it would have been me driving him there, wasn’t no place close, and the juke joint couldn’t call for an ambulance, because somebody had cut the wire on the pay phone outside earlier in the day . . .

  ***

  EVENTUALLY, SOMEBODY WENT and got a couple deputies, and they came out and saw Dwayne was sure-enough dead. They asked me about the amp and the puddle and all, and I told them I wanted to move the mic but Dwayne wouldn’t have it. The waitress backed me up, so did Roy and Jim Bob and Bonehead.

  Terrible accident, electricity and water and all, but hey, shit happens. They shook their heads, hauled the body off, and that was the end of that.

  They didn’t say anything about the fact that Mississippi was a dry state as they left the juke, no alcohol allowed, neither.

  ***

  AS WE WERE LOADING the old panel truck with our gear, I found myself alone with Bonehead. “Nice work. On the weather.”

  He smiled, nodded. “I wasn’t sure I could actually do it, make it rain like that. And it helped you put the hole in the right place.”

  I shrugged. “Big deal. Sharp screwdriver.”

  “And the string.”

  “Easy. Just a nick, right by the nut. Figured he’d break it on the solo, that being the only string he knew how to use.”

  That, with the plug flipped and its polarity reversed when I plugged it back in, and the mic stand set up just a bit into the puddle after I knocked it down? Exactly as I figured it would go.

  Adiós, Dwayne.

  We smiled at each other.

  ***

  SO NOW IT’S JUST The Blades, and we’re doing all right. Added a piano player, got a deal workin’ with Sam Phillips, over at Sun Records, in Memphis. I sing the lead and play the guitar, we cover a lot of race record music, and we’re working better places now. Opened for Carl Perkins last month, be opening for Elvis in two weeks at the state fair.

  And when we play outdoor gigs at the state fairs?

  We never get rained out, neither, because our drummer?

  He is way beyond badass . . .

  * * *

  STEVE PERRY has sold dozens of stories to magazines and anthologies, as well as a considerable number of novels, animated teleplays, non-fiction articles, reviews, and essays, along with a couple of unproduced movie scripts. He wrote for Batman: The Animated Series during its first Emmy-award winning season, and during the second season, one of his scripts was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing—which no doubt caused the subsequent loss of that award. His novelization of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire spent ten weeks on The New York Times Bestseller List. He also did the bestselling novelization for the summer blockbuster movie Men in Black, and all of his collaborative novels for Tom Clancy’s Net Force series have made the NY Times Bestseller list. He is a recipient of the Willamette Writers Lifetime Achievement Award.

  He lives in Oregon with his wife, two Cardigan Corgis, and one ornery cat.

  * * *

  MYSTERY TRAIN: AN ARCANE INVESTIGATION

  by Max Allan Collins and Matthew V. Clemens

  “Sometimes Alexander’s investigations can be quite dangerous . . . ”

  * * *

  Somewhere in the Florida Everglades, 1959 . . .

  HOWIE AND THE HOWLERS HAD THE SMALL crowd at Waldrop’s General Store jumpin’ and jivin’. In the ’glades, there weren’t a lot of places a man could get a cold draft and a hot band, but Waldrop’s was one. On the grocery side were bread and milk and the like, but also an aisle of packaged cookies, canned foods, and even some dry goods and hardware items—a little of everything and not a lot of anything. Hell, big Dan Waldrop even had a gas pump out front.

  The other side was a café, but on weekend nights, tables got pushed to the walls, a band would play, and the swampers would mosey in to kick up their heels. A few locals would strum guitars or play a washboard with spoons, singing songs everyone knew. Occasionally, a road band would get lost and play Waldrop’s for gas money.

  Like tonight.

  The band had taken a wrong turn and, running low on both gas and money, had struck a deal with big Dan to play for a couple of hours in exchange for a full tank and directions—the paying gig was a few days off.

  Howie and the Howlers were a young rockabilly band from upstate, with the expected leather jackets and greased-back hair. Now they broke into a cover of Sid King’s “Shake This Shack Tonight”—given their volume, they seemed to be trying their best to do exactly that.

  A friend might have described owner Dan Waldrop as portly, but there were damned few friends in the ’glades. Dan knew most of the guys, especially the five habitually congregating beside the cracker barrel, thought of him as just plain fat.

  A man of property, Dan liked to convey his position by what he wore, clothes making the man—open-collared white shirt, black pants and vest, big white plantation-owner hat. He did, after all, own a damn sight more than the whole cracker barrel bunch put together. So, he really didn’t care what they thought about his size. It was the same attire he’d worn to woo and win the heart of his wife, Liz. No reason to go changing up now.

  As if on cue, his wife slinked into the café from their bedroom in back and instantly commanded every eye in the room. The petite brick-house blonde wore a skirt that showed a lot of leg, and a sheer white blouse that did nothing to hide her thin black bra’s efforts to restrain breasts threatening to escape and leave the swamp behind. She brushed against Dan, her skin not quite as hot as the surface of the sun. />
  She leaned in, her voice husky in his ear. “Gimme a beer.”

  Dan went dutifully over, raised the lid on the cooler, pulled a Schlitz out of the icy water, and used the attached opener. When he turned, every man in the place, and even a couple women, were watching Liz dance all by herself.

  Didn’t bother Dan that other men wanted what he had. In a way, he kind of liked it. But he didn’t like how much Liz relished teasing them.

  When the song ended, he strolled over and handed her the cold bottle. She leaned her back against the wall, thrust her breasts out like a dare, really giving the café crowd a show as she took a long pull on the cold beer, leaving her lips all moist and glisteny.

  She was already pretty well lit, Dan knew. Since they got married, she split her time between that and completely shit-faced. Her party girl attitude had been a big plus to Dan once upon a time. But now they were married, and as he watched her drink the beer, he said, “Jesus, Liz, give it a rest, willya?”

  Her lush lips smiled, but her eyes flashed nasty, then she ran her tongue around the neck of the bottle before taking another long pull.

  Even as he watched the muscles of her throat work as she swallowed, Dan knew he would do anything to keep her. In the corner, the band broke into a cover of Don Woody’s “Barking Up the Wrong Tree.”

  Howie, the lead singer, compact, sinewy, blue eyes shining, white teeth flashing, sang, “You’re barking up the wrong tree, that’s what she said to me,” eyes glued to Liz and her swaying hips. She moved toward the screen door to the railed porch that ran around three sides of the building.

  As the tall, skinny Howlers bass player did his last “woof woof,” into the microphone, Howie was already announcing the band would be taking a ten-minute smoke-’em-if-you-got-’em break.

  Dan went over to the band bringing a tray with bottles of cold Coke. If the Howlers wanted beer, they could pay like everybody else.

  Howie grabbed a Coke and kept right on past Dan and out the same door as Liz. Dan wanted to follow the singer, but the other Howlers and the small crowd hemmed him in.

  Outside, the air was hot and thick—to Liz, it was like breathing water. Damned humidity never let up, and tonight a cloud of green fog rolled toward the back of the store from the swamp.

  Somewhere a train whistle called—some lucky fool was leaving this damn place. Steamy or not, this was better than being inside. That singer was cute, she thought, and, ’less she missed her guess, would be out here any second, sniffing around like a hound dog. They all wanted a piece of her—Dan, the cracker-barrel bunch, the guys who brought their girlfriends and wives to hear the rockabilly band, every damn one of ’em—but all Liz wanted was out of this swamp.

  The screen door squeaked open and Howie strutted onto the porch like she’d willed it. Swigging his Coke, he looked more like an excited boy than the kind of man she needed to make her escape from this swampy hellhole. She knew at once he was just another wolf howling at her door.

  “Pretty hot night,” Howie said, with a lascivious grin.

  “Hot enough, I guess,” Liz said.

  “I bet you like it that way,” he said, easing closer to her, grin growing as fast as the bulge in his jeans.

  Losing interest already, she took another long pull on her beer. The weird green fog was inching closer to the porch. Fog in the Everglades was nothing new, Liz thought, but green fog?

  Howie said, “You look like could use a really good time, baby. Kind these hicks don’t know how to show you.”

  She gave him an are-you-still-here-? look. “You said it for me in the microphone—you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree.”

  As the green mist enveloped them, Liz thought she heard Howie bark a harsh laugh, but then it was more than that. Hell! He was howling! And it wasn’t like his howling inside. Doubled over, barely visible in the damned fog, he writhed, the noises he was making sounding more like an animal than a man.

  She backed away, terrified, but there was nowhere to go. The swamp nearly surrounded the store, the railed porch ended behind her, and Howie was between her and the door. If she went over or under the rail, this time of night, she was as likely to run into a gator or cottonmouth as not.

  The howl turned into a shriek, Howie contorting, shrouded by the fog, and Liz shivered as she backed up against the porch rail.

  “Dan!”

  She had no idea if her husband or anybody else heard her scream. Fear froze her in place, as Howie emerged from the mist and filled her wide eyes—except it wasn’t Howie, but some hideous beast, fur sprouting from its face like a wolf’s, fangs bared, but in Howie’s clothes.

  “Dan!” she cried again, but her husband and everyone else inside failed to appear. The creature Howie had become moved menacingly toward her, growling, spittle flying from his gaping, fang-filled mouth. When he was close enough for the stench of his breath to nearly overwhelm her, she brought the beer bottle down onto his skull with a satisfying crack.

  The beast snarled, bent slightly, shaking it off, and as he did, she kneed him hard in the balls. Falling back, the wolf howled in pain as Liz slipped under the rail of the porch and ran around behind the store, gators be damned.

  Running as best she could in the dark, in her sandal-type heels, she tried to keep an eye peeled for stray reptiles and that fucking wolf, who, by the splashing sound of it, was now pursuing her. Where the hell was Dan, or anyone else for that matter?

  She kicked out of her shoes and flew barefoot over the swampy ground, the back door with the single light bulb dangling over seeming miles away, not thirty yards. The harder she ran, lungs burning, pain searing her bare feet, the louder the growl of her pursuer grew. She didn’t dare risk a look back.

  Only ten yards to go. She just might make it—unless tonight was the night Dan finally remembered to lock up the damned back door. But she was so close, the glow of the dim bulb calling to her . . .

  Then the monster’s hot breath touched her neck. She looked at that door just a few steps—and a lifetime—away. Her step faltered, yet she pressed forward. The animal’s claws grazed her shoulder, the pain like someone held a torch to her skin.

  She stumbled, the beast about to take her down, so close to the door but even if she got there, she’d never get it open in time. Then that door swung open and light poured out, an answered prayer.

  Only a few more feet.

  Diving through and in was an option, but how to get the door closed before the monster got inside with her?

  Then, as suddenly as the door had opened, the space was all but blotted by the shape of big Dan Waldrop, rifle in his hands.

  The first shot went into the air. Liz never stopped sprinting, and the creature must have stopped in its tracks, its breath no longer on her.

  “Down, Liz,” Dan roared, the butt of the rifle jumping to his shoulder.

  She dove, landing in the muck.

  Dan fired.

  The animal howled. When Liz looked up, it had disappeared into the fog and swamp, just a hint of that green fog still drifting.

  “What in the goddamn hell was that?” Dan asked.

  “Howie,” she managed.

  “Howie . . . the singer? That was a damn animal, some kind of wolf! Jesus, Liz, how much did you have to drink tonight?”

  “I’m telling you, Dan,” she said, near hysteria. “That green fog rolled in and he turned into a wolf or whatever the hell.”

  Dan knelt down to her. Her dress was ripped from her shoulders, blood trickled from where the beast had scratched her, and her breasts were nearly bare as she folded herself into her husband’s arms and wept.

  Looking out into the swamp, Dan said, “I don’t what the hell that was, but I’m gonna find out . . . and I reckon I know a man can help me do just that.”

  ***

  BEVERLY RAITH WAS RIDING through the Everglades in the backseat of a Jeep, sitting next to a blonde in a white dress showing more skin than it covered, behind a fat driver who looked like a plantation bo
ss; her own new boss sat in the front passenger seat. Beverly couldn’t help but reflect on what had turned into the most surreal twenty-four hours of her life—had it really only been one day since her desperation for a job had led her to this godforsaken place?

  She’d been about out of options. Stranded in Salem, Massachusetts, she couldn’t even raise the bus fare to get back to her mom and dad in the Midwest. A registered nurse, the petite blue-eyed blonde had worked at Salem General, only making it through the winter there because the hospital didn’t want the bad press that would come from laying off staff in the winter.

  She was drawing unemployment benefits of not quite forty dollars a week, but that would hardly keep the wolf from the door. That need had brought her to this neighborhood known as the Point, and the ghostly mansion on the corner of Congress and Leavitt Streets. While most of the dwellings in the block were either apartments or row houses, the corner house stood alone amid the shadows of two big trees in the yard—a long-in-the-tooth Victorian mansion, complete with widow’s walk.

  Myrtle in pediatrics had told her the Arcanes were weird, but they had money. Beverly went up the walk past grass that still contained hints of snow. She knocked on the heavy wooden door and waited, and when it finally swung open, a slender woman answered who might have been only a few years older than Beverly’s twenty-eight. Where Beverly had a blonde pageboy, the woman had raven hair that hung nearly to her waist, and wore a black dress that made her porcelain skin practically glow.

  “Mrs. Arcane?” Beverly asked.

  The woman smiled, her teeth even whiter than her pale skin, and extended a frigid-looking hand. “I’m Alicia Arcane. You must be Mrs. Raith.”